If I Never Knew You
by Jedi Jelsa777
Summary: What if Lucy and Natsu had never met?


Lucy sighed. It had been another long day at Love and Lucky. It had been just a few months since her dad had died, having worked himself to death in an effort to regain their fortune so that she could have the life that she deserved, or at least that is what her father had said. In all honesty, she would have been satisfied to have had more time with him rather than more money. Why had she shied away from telling him?

Their relationship had improved after she had run away, determined to be a Celestial Wizard like her mother before her. He had found her shortly after she had bought Plue's key and convinced her to give him a second chance. She had willingly returned home with him and they had become closer than they ever had been before, but then the business failed and Lucy knew her father had viewed himself as a failure to her after that.

She had put aside her dreams of being a wizard in order to help put food on the table. Yeah being in a wizard guild would have brought money in for them, but it also would have kept them apart as she would have had to travel for jobs. So they both had gone to work at Love and Lucky, arriving just after some wizards from Fairy Tail had left, having stopped a dark guild called Naked Mummy that had been trying to rob them.

Lucy sighed, shaking her head clear of the thoughts of the past as she began her short walk through Acalypha to the boarding house she lived at. It cost 10,000 Jewels a week for her the bed and shelf she was assigned, but it was affordable and she really didn't need more with her father no longer alive. She looked down at the keys she still carried with her everywhere, but that was more for sentimental and cautionary reasons then any real use, in fact Plue was the only one she still called upon and that was only if she was feeling lonely.

Every once in a while she would call one of the others, but they had all seemed down ever since Grandpa Crux had told her that Leo had died. She hadn't realized it was possible for spirits to do so, but apparently he had gotten trapped in the human world for some reason or other and had simply faded away. There would never be 12 Zodiac Golden Keys again. Lucy had thought about selling off Cancer, Aquarius and Taurus' keys, but she wasn't sure how they would be treated so that, along with them being one of the few things she had left of her mother's, kept her from doing so.

Lucy flopped down on her bed, closing her eyes for what only seemed like a minute before she opened them and found it was already the next morning. Her life continued in this fashion, a few dates scattered here and there, but she never seemed to find someone she felt that certain spark for. She died at the age of 99, a member of her family's close friends, the Lobsters, burying her in a plot next to her mother and father. Lucy left her money to the Fairy Tail Guild, in memory of her dreams as well as to show her support for all the good they had done for Fiore.

XXX

Natsu looked out over the crowd of demons and grimaced. He loved his brother Zeref, but sometimes Natsu wished Zeref had just let him stay dead. This all felt pointless. His brother had brought him back as a demon, his most powerful one even, and set to training Natsu how to use his Fire Demon magic. Once Natsu's body had reached adulthood, he stopped aging just like his brother had and hundreds of years had passed.

The only things that told of what he once had looked like before he came back as a demon was his human shape, size and his pink hair. He was covered in red scales from head to foot, his hands were more claw like then actual hands and his feet had long nails meant to shred his enemies with. Two horns protruded from opposites sides of his head and wings sprouted from his back at will when he needed them.

Once again he questioned what was the point of all this, Zeref would just defeat this batch of wizards as he had before and they would just have more lands to control and worry about. Why his brother cared he did not know, or perhaps it was that his brother didn't care. Natsu could smell that August was Zeref's son, but he never told his brother this fact simply because he was worried that Zeref might start caring and thus lead to the deaths of them all. Course, he allowed Larcade to call him father and Natsu brother and that hadn't led to anything so maybe Natsu was worried about nothing, but he didn't want to put his brother's curse to the test.

Shaking off these thoughts, Natsu summoned his wings to him and then lifted into the air, calling out "Attack!" He had barely noticed his brother's cue to do so. Just as he thought, the war was starting to swing in their favor, Zeref did something unexpected. He attacked Natsu! "Zeref, what the heck are you doing!?" Natsu questioned. "Only you have the power to kill me Natsu. Do it! I don't want to live in this life anymore, it's boring and I hate this curse. Kill me! I've made it so you will be spared if you do so." Zeref demanded.

"I can't! You're my brother Zeref and while you may not care about me I care about you!" Natsu declared. Zeref smirked and replied softly "I thought you would say that. Very well, activate dragon protocol!" Natsu's mind went blank in the next few minutes and when it finally cleared he stood over his brother's dying body. "No! What did I do!?" Natsu cried out. Zeref smiled from the ground and said "Don't worry Natsu, it was a one-time thing that I added to your book to ensure you would kill me. Do not feel bad, brother, you have freed me! And I do care for you Natsu, I always have."

With that Zeref died and Natsu mourned his loss. Across the battlefield, demons screamed in agony before they disappeared until the only ones left were him, August and Larcade, whom Zeref obviously must have cared for to spare him as well. The three gathered around Zeref's body, not paying any attention to the gathering forces of mages that were headed their way, intent on destroying those who remained of Zeref's army once and for all.

Natsu was the first to notice them and was determined to protect what was left of his family. "August, take Larcade and get out of here." He ordered. "But Uncle…" "There is no time to argue. Go, use your magic and find some place safe for you and Larcade to live out the rest of your days. Let me at least protect some of my family today." The last part came out in nearly a whisper. August couldn't deny his uncle this, so he nodded and with farewells from both him and Larcade, they ran off in the only direction the mages weren't in.

Natsu stood firmly between their retreating backs and the mages. Most, upon seeing the remaining members of Zeref's army fleeing slowed to a stop, but one with black hair just kept pushing on. He stopped not far from Natsu and yelled "You're going down, demon. I'm an Ice Devil Slayer and you will pay for your crimes against humans!" "Bring it on, Ice Princess! I will protect my family!" Natsu yelled back. As the man attacked he yelled "Demons don't have families! You, your kind, destroyed all of mine, I will have my revenge!"

Natsu didn't care if this Devil Slayer killed him, he was done with life and only wanted to give August and Larcade time to get away. The other mages stood far enough away where they weren't in the path of the two fighting forms, but close enough to watch and cheer every time the one they called Gray in their chants landed a blow. Only an old man in the group looked at Natsu with pity, for only he could see that the demon's heart wasn't in this fight. He didn't fear for his children, he knew Gray would win this fight, but inwardly he wept for the demon, the pain of loss so clearly on his face for him to see.

Finally, sure that August and Larcade were far from this place, Natsu purposely stepped into one of Gray's blows, surprising the Ice Devil Slayer. "Why did you do that?!" Gray questioned him. Natsu grinned as the blood flowed out of him from the place where Gray's Ice Lance had penetrated his skin and said "My family should be safe by now and I will be joining my brother today. Thank you." And with those final words, Natsu the Demon died.

XXX

They both sat up in bed with a start, the dreams leaving them with a sense of heartache. As soon as they noticed the other was also awake, they asked as one "Are you ok?" After a strained chuckle, she said "Yeah, just a weird dream. You?" "Same." He replied and proceeded to tell her about it. Once she had told him hers she said "You know, I just realized that neither of us had any of our friends or each other in it. At least not on our side." "You're right Luce." Tears filled her eyes as she said "To think about how lonely my life could have been if I never knew you… if we hadn't met in Hargeon that day all those years ago…" "Or what if Zeref hadn't ever given me to Igneel to raise… Such simple actions led to us meeting each other…" Natsu added.

Lucy smiled at him from her bed on the other side of the room in the hotel as she said "I'm glad those simple actions were taken. Sure, I would have never been in some of the life threatening situations I was in, but I also would have just lived life going through the motions instead of living and having adventures with you and the others." Natsu gave her his signature grin before answering her from his bed "Every moment you have been in my life has made it so much better Lucy, just as the others at Fairy Tail have."

Lucy was about to reply to him when Happy sat up next to Natsu in bed with a cry and said "Oh that was awful!" Concerned, Lucy asked "Are you okay Happy? Did you have a bad dream?" "Yes, all the fish in the world died! I was so hungry!" Lucy and Natsu shared a look and couldn't help bursting out into laughter. Happy gave them both odd looks as they continued to laugh, Natsu pulling him into a hug. Happy didn't know what was wrong with those two, maybe they had some sake after he went to sleep, but he just accepted that they were going to be weird tonight and joined in on the laughter.

**So the song If I Never Knew You from Pocahontas randomly popped into my head today. Then I started picturing Lucy and Natsu's lives if they had never met. Lucy was the easiest as far as where did I pick the part where her life made a turn away from what we saw in Fairy Tail, but Natsu's was the one that I had the most fun with writing. I knew I wanted Gray to kill him, idk, it felt fitting I guess to do that. But I also wanted to give August and Larcade a happier ending then they had in Fairy Tail. Oh and in case it wasn't quite obvious, I got Natsu's demon form from Dragon Cry, adding a few small touches of my own to it of course.**


End file.
